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    Black Trailblazers: 30 Courageous Visionaries Who Broke Boundaries, Made a Difference, and Paved the Way
    Black Trailblazers: 30 Courageous Visionaries Who Broke Boundaries, Made a Difference, and Paved the Way
    Black Trailblazers: 30 Courageous Visionaries Who Broke Boundaries, Made a Difference, and Paved the Way
    Ebook246 pages1 hour

    Black Trailblazers: 30 Courageous Visionaries Who Broke Boundaries, Made a Difference, and Paved the Way

    By Bijan Bayne and Joelle Avelino

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    About this ebook

    A gorgeously illustrated compendium of 30 black luminaries who changed the world.

    Thirty bite-sized biographies of black thinkers, activists, and innovators with beautiful full-color illustrations throughout. Black Trailblazers is an illustrated inspiration for children that gives these important figures their due, highlighting their work to make our world a brighter, better place. An appealing blend of history, quotes from the figures themselves, and gorgeous visuals, this book will educate, entertain, and inspire.

    Including luminaries such as:

    • Madam C. J. Walker
    • James Baldwin
    • Shirley Chisolm
    • Dick Gregory
    • Nina Simone
    • Thurgood Marshall
    • Misty Copeland
    • ...and many more!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAndrews McMeel Publishing
    Release dateSep 27, 2022
    ISBN9781524881719
    Black Trailblazers: 30 Courageous Visionaries Who Broke Boundaries, Made a Difference, and Paved the Way

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      Book preview

      Black Trailblazers - Bijan Bayne

      BLACK TRAILBLAZERS copyright © 2022 by Hollan Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

      Andrews McMeel Publishing

      a division of Andrews McMeel Universal

      1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

      www.andrewsmcmeel.com

      ISBN: 978-1-5248-7477-3

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930758

      Editor: Allison Adler

      Art Director: Katie Jennings Campbell

      Production Editor: Elizabeth A. Garcia

      Production Manager: Julie Skalla

      ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

      Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail the Andrews McMeel Publishing Special Sales Department: [email protected].

      Introduction

      Phillis Wheatley

      Sojourner Truth

      Madam C. J. Walker

      W.E.B. Du Bois

      Bessie Coleman

      Louis Armstrong

      Ella Baker

      Charles Drew

      Thurgood Marshall

      Mahalia Jackson

      Ella Fitzgerald

      Katherine Johnson

      James Baldwin

      Shirley Chisholm

      Sidney Poitier

      Martin Luther King, Jr.

      Toni Morrison

      Dick Gregory

      Nina Simone

      Quincy Jones

      Diane Nash

      Claudette Colvin

      Muhammad Ali

      Aretha Franklin

      Stevie Wonder

      Oprah Winfrey

      Florence Griffith Joyner

      Barack Obama

      Kamala Harris

      Misty Copeland

      About the Author & Illustrator

      Introduction

      Think of the world as you know it today, where astronauts travel to outer space, where science and medicine save and enrich lives, where culture is bold and vibrant, where technology is at your fingertips, and where regular citizens can become powerful voices for good. All this would not be possible without the unrelenting efforts of Black trailblazers throughout history.

      A trailblazer is a person who comes to a rough patch in the forest with no obvious route forward, and instead of turning back around, they come up with a new idea, they rally others for help, or they devise a plan for how to create a new path forward. They blaze their own trail, which allows others to follow behind them. And when someone becomes a trailblazer, it can be in just about anything—from science and medicine, to freedom from injustice, to books and music, to confidence in oneself.

      Take mathematician Katherine Johnson, who didn’t use a computer to calculate the path to the moon. She was the computer—and for many decades, she wasn’t even a footnote in the history books. Imagine doing a good deed and giving blood for someone who might need it in an emergency. Our ability to save that blood to give it to someone else is all thanks to Charles Drew. Or think of how you can move about freely—on a bus, at a voting booth, or at a water fountain—without a rule that says you don’t belong because of the color of your skin. Without civil rights activists like Claudette Colvin, Diane Nash, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among many others, those freedoms might not be possible.

      Changemakers throughout history take on many different forms, and it’s not always obvious who those people are. Even if someone doesn’t call themselves an activist, that doesn’t mean they aren’t making a difference. The actions of those who came first allow other people to continue the work of progress. Quincy Jones paved the way for Black musicians, filmmakers, and producers. Florence Griffith Joyner and Misty Copeland showed young women that the sky is the limit no matter what they look like. And Barack Obama and Kamala Harris made it clear that Black and Brown boys and girls can grow up to lead the world.

      Some of these names are familiar, but so many of these important innovators have been written out of the story, when they are the story. Read on about these 30 Black Trailblazers, the inspiring pioneers whose indispensable work propelled the world forward and set the course of history.

      First published Black woman in the American colonies

      Personally invited to meet future president George Washington

      The woman we know as Phillis Wheatley was born with another name in West Africa, where a local chief sold her into slavery when she was just 7 or 8 years old. A slave trader then brought her to the American colonies in a ship with hundreds of other people he planned to sell. When she arrived in Boston on July 11, 1761, a wealthy man named John Wheatley bought the frightened young girl to work for his wife. They called her Phillis after the name of the slave ship that brought her to the colonies and Wheatley for the family she was forced to serve.

      The Wheatley family took a special interest in Phillis’s education. Quickly recognizing her talents for language, they even assigned her housework to their other enslaved people so that she could focus on her studies. In many places, teaching an enslaved person to read was illegal. Phillis not only read, but she read Mr. Wheatley’s own collection of famous writers. By the age of 12, she could read complex works in English, Greek, and Latin. Phillis especially loved to read classic poets like Homer and John Milton, whose works inspired her to write.

      She published her first poem in a local paper when she was just 14 years old. By the time she turned 18, Phillis had 28 poems she hoped to print as a collection. The Wheatleys, who had been happy to show off their talented ward to friends and family, did their best to find a publisher. When no one in the colonies would consider the work of an enslaved person, they turned to their connections in England.

      In 1773, Phillis accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley to London, where her work was already being celebrated. People were curious about the enslaved African girl who could write and recite so well. During her trip, she read for the mayor and secured the support of a wealthy countess, who helped Phillis publish her book that same year. Upon her return to Boston, the Wheatleys offered her something she longed for even more than publication. After 13 years of being owned by other people, Phillis was finally free.

      Having her freedom didn’t mean having it easy, though. Phillis still had to prove herself to people who didn’t believe a Black girl who had been enslaved could have written so beautifully. At one point, a group of Boston politicians and doctors took it upon themselves to examine Phillis to see if she was legit.

      The Write Stuff

      Phillis often used her talents to write letters to famous men expressing her opinions and support. She wrote one of these powerful letters to Revolutionary War general (and future U.S. president) George Washington. The general, who was busy commanding all the colonial troops against the British, invited the author to meet him. In March of 1776, Phillis met General Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Four months later, he led the colonies to win their independence from England.

      (One of these examiners was John Hancock, who later became the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence.) Only when they were convinced Phillis was intelligent and well-spoken enough to have produced her work did they lend their statement of support to her book.

      Today, there are high schools, YWCA buildings, college dormitories, and literary clubs named for Phillis. (Just imagine what a star she would have been on social media today.) But people continue to give more credit to Phillis’s supporters than to the writer herself. They say that, although she was enslaved, she was lucky to have had owners who recognized how bright she was. But Phillis would have been just as intelligent had she never been kidnapped. And she had to be a pretty incredible person and writer to impress kings, statesmen, and future presidents. Who knows what she might have accomplished if she had been allowed to live out her life in freedom.

      The people who were lucky were the ones who met Phillis and got to enjoy her poetry. She was one of the first women poets in this country, paving the way for women like Emily Dickinson and Louisa May Alcott. And every Black poet in the United States has followed in her footsteps. Phillis lived a tough life that was all too brief. But her powerful words still echo throughout history.

      A Long History

      Famous French philosopher Voltaire once said Phillis was proof a Black person could write poetry. Considering that Homer and Aesop—two of the most well-known poets of all time—were likely Black, this is pretty ridiculous. In fact, Black people had been writing poems in Ethiopia, Egypt, and Spain before the Bible was written. Phillis’s accomplishment as the first Black woman published in the American colonies is impressive, but it is also part of a long history of Black contributions to language and literature.

      Escaped slavery to become a world-renowned human rights crusader

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